Trends in population growth hold high importance in many sectors of a country and the same is true for collections of countries be it the UN, EU or AUKUS. Throughout the world people representing sectors such as Energy, Health Care and Financials consider trends in population to be an important part of many decisions that are made be it within politics or private for-profit companies. Gender issues, immigration and fertility rates are also often at the forefront of discussions within the Western World.
Regarding the above points it stands to reason that population predictions are a valuable reference for governments and companies. One of the methods used to create these predictions is to look to the past to track population changes over time and how events like wars, famine or advancements may have impacted the growth or decline of a reproduction rate in an area of the world.
This assignment attempts to answer the following basic questions and show how there are similarities and differences among regions:
The data used is from the United Nations, 2022, and can be found at World population prospects - population division. It contains Population, Fertility, Mortality and Migration estimates for 237 countries and/or regions from 1950 to 2021. Only the following selected variables listed in Table 2.1 have been used in this assignment.
| Names | Data Type | Further Information |
|---|---|---|
| Region, subregion, country or area * | Categorical | Contains the following categories: World, Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Northern America, and Oceania. |
| Type | Categorical | Contains the following information: World and Region |
| Year | Numerical | Contains years from 1950 to 2021 |
| Total Population, as of 1 January (thousands) | Numerical | Contains the population number in Thousands as of January |
| Male Population, as of 1 July (thousands) | Numerical | Contains the Male Population in July in thousands |
| Female Population, as of 1 July (thousands) | Numerical | Contains the Female Population in July in thousands |
| Population Sex Ratio, as of 1 July (males per 100 females) | Numerical | Contains the Ratio males per 100 females in July |
This filtered data set contains 7 variables. An outline of the variable types and information is presented above in Table 2.1. There are 504 observations in this filtered data set which contain population values for each year for Global and the Regions only.
Table 3.1 shows the population (in thousands) for the World and the Regions in 1950 and 2021 and the Relative Population Change between these two years as a percentage.
| Region, subregion, country or area * | Type | 1950 | 2021 | Relative Difference (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| World | World | 2477675 | 7876932 | 218 |
| Africa | Region | 225120 | 1377285 | 512 |
| Asia | Region | 1365953 | 4680790 | 243 |
| Europe | Region | 547304 | 745853 | 36 |
| Latin America And The Caribbean | Region | 166137 | 654148 | 294 |
| Northern America | Region | 160754 | 374641 | 133 |
| Oceania | Region | 12406 | 44215 | 256 |
From Table 3.1 the Worlds Relative Population Change between 1950 and 2021 is 218%. The table also indicates that all regions have had an increase too. The region with the greatest population change is Africa with an increase of 512%. Europe is the lowest region with an increase of 36%.
Figure 3.1 shows the World population from 1950 to 2021. In blue is the population values at each year, while in orange is a linear regression line for this data.
Figure 3.1: The World Population in January (measured in thousands) from 1950 to 2021.
In Figure 3.1 the World Population has a steady increase from 1950 to 2021. This increase is linear, with the population values being slightly above the regression line in the 1950s and from 2010 onwards.
Figure 3.2 shows the population numbers in thousands in the regions from 1950 to 2021. All regions have a linear regression fitted to their data in black. Each region has a different y-axis due to their varied population sizes.
Figure 3.2: The Region Populations in January (measured in thousands) from 1950 to 2021.
An increase in population across all regions is observed in Figure 3.2, however the following further observations are also seen:
Further analysis of the data for Africa, Europe and Oceania was not conducted to determine their actual regression type but could be an extension beyond this assignment.
| Region | Avg_Male_Pop_Thousands | Avg_Female_Pop_Thousands | Males_Per_100_Female |
|---|---|---|---|
| Africa | 320591 | 322854 | 99 |
| Asia | 1517737 | 1459634 | 104 |
| Europe | 327379 | 357513 | 91 |
| Latin America And The Caribbean | 202712 | 205694 | 99 |
| Northern America | 132116 | 136068 | 97 |
| Oceania | 13200 | 12995 | 102 |
| World | 2513735 | 2494758 | 101 |
Table 4.1 shows the average of the population of the sexes (in thousands) across multiple continents and the World.
Listed is both the raw numbers of Male and Female in 1000s as well as the ratio of Male to Female in a magnitude of Males to 100 Females. Within this data set is 6 columns. Missing above is the ‘Year’ column. There are 504 records in this data set. Each row accounts for a single years’ measurement for the associated region.
| Variable | N | Mean | Std. Dev. | Min | Pctl. 25 | Pctl. 75 | Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Male_Pop_Thousands | 432 | 418956 | 553459 | 6422 | 113406 | 355779 | 2389589 |
| Female_Pop_Thousands | 432 | 415793 | 529756 | 6155 | 115931 | 382338 | 2304987 |
| Sex_Ratio | 432 | 99 | 4.1 | 87 | 97 | 102 | 105 |
Table 4.2 is the summary statistics of the listed variables with the ‘World’ statistics removed. Inferring from this table, the smallest region with a minimum population of ~ 13,000,000 and the largest region with a maximum population of ~ 4,500,000,000.
Figure 4.1 shows the World’s sexes totals from 1950 to 2021.
Figure 4.2 shows the ratio of males to 100 females. A value of 100 shows an exact match of the sexes within the population.
The chart shows an almost a linear increase of males:females until a peak of 101.307:100 in 2015. There is flat areas from 1959 - 1962, 1982 - 1986 along a near constant increase of males:females.
Figure 4.3 has 6 charts showing the population growth and split of genders.
Figure 4.4 is the combined ratios of males to 100 females. Colour coded by each region.
Global populations from 1950 to 2021 have increased by 218% as shown in Table 1.2. Figure 1.1 also shows this increase has been linear except in the 1950’s and recently from about 2010 onwards where the rate of increase has been faster.
Table 1.2 and Figure 1.2 show the regions have also experienced increases in population size but that their rate of increase has varied. Africa has the highest rate of increase with at 512% from 1950 to 2021, and it is non-linear. The lowest regional growth occurred in Europe which showed a relative change of only 36%. Europe also experienced a halt in growth from the early 1990s until the late 2000’s, before showing a small increase after this time. The regions of Asia; Latin America and the Caribbean; and Northern America all showed similar linear increases in population over the time period. Finally, Oceania showed an increase which was not linear.
As the population grows, the ratio of male:female also changes over time. Seen in Figure 4.3, We can see that Asia, North America and Latin America are all growing apart in terms of a 1:1 ratio. Europe while growing in population still has a large gap in the ratio between men and women. This is shown in more detail in Figure 4.4.
Understanding the way that populations grow or stagnate offers valuable insights into dynamics within society and also helps aide analysts in building models for predicting future growth.
United Nations. (2022). World population prospects - population division. https://population.un.org/wpp/ Population Reference Bureau. (2014). Understanding Population Projections: Assumptions Behind the Numbers: https://www.prb.org/resources